Adolfo Carrion, who aspires to be New York City‘s first Latino mayor, said he believes he’s the best person to succeed Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but he also maintains it’s high time a Latino is the chief executive at City Hall.

“It’s absolutely important — I think it would be an inspiration to the world, certainly for people all across the country,” said Carrion, discussing the prospect of New Yorkers electing a Latino mayor in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal.

“I believe that we have an opportunity to make a gesture to the Latino community that says I, as your mayor, am going to tackle the issues that have held your community and your family back,” he said. “And, by God, you just look at every important measure and there is no way that you can say that there’s been success (for Latinos).”

Carrion, a former Bronx borough president, is not the only mayoral hopeful with the potential for a history-making win. If City Council Speaker Christine Quinn wins, she will be the city’s first female and first openly gay mayor. If Comptroller John Liu runs for mayor and succeeds, he would be the first Asian-American mayor.

In 2001 and 2005, Carrion supported Fernando Ferrer, a Democrat and a former Bronx borough president, in his failed quests to become the city’s first Latino mayor. Last year, Carrion left the Democratic Party and became unaffiliated with any party; he is hoping to run in the Republican primary and, as The Journal reported Friday, he’s the leading candidate for the Independence Party line.

To have any chance of becoming the GOP mayoral nominee, Carrion must convince three of the city’s five Republican chairmen to give him a special waiver to get on the ballot because he is not a member of the party. In an interview, he said the city’s Republican leaders have an opportunity to make a strong statement by endorsing him, noting how the Latino vote played a crucial role in Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s loss in November.

“This is a moment where they can make a gesture to the country that they have a wider tent than what most people see as their tent,” Carrion said.

Carrion has met with a number of GOP officials, including former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former New York Gov. George Pataki, as he makes his case to seek the GOP nomination. If the Republican leaders don’t let him run, Carrion said he’s planning to run in November on the Independence Party line, should he secure it.

“I am committed to running all the way as an independent. I think that that message and that brand is in our future,” he said. “Mike Bloomberg sees that. I think he’s investing in it. He’s certainly making a gesture nationally about that — the importance of independent leadership.”

Carrion said he believes Bloomberg was a good mayor, but he acknowledged he campaigned for his ouster in 2005. “You have to understand I also was supporting a very dear friend who had the opportunity to be the first Latino mayor in what is increasingly a Latino city,” he said, referring to Ferrer.

Carrion declined to say whom he supported in the 2001 and 2009 general elections for mayor.

“I don’t have the inclination or in my life plan the time to spend in an office for eight years…(waiting) to run for mayor,” he said. “The problems of New York are way too urgent and have to be dealt with now.”

On education, Carrion said Bloomberg “moved the needle.” But, he said, “I think we have a lot of work to do, still.”

Carrion grew up in the city in the 1970s and said he knows what it’s like to “live in a broken city, where people are afraid and there’s a lack of confidence about the future.

“At this moment, what the city needs is somebody with a big vision with an understanding of how the entirety of cities work, the relative independence to provide the leadership and make the tough decisions that need to be made to fix the systems that have failed such a large swath of the city’s population,” he said.

In terms of his views on crime, Carrion said the city’s stop-and-frisk policy needs to be “fixed,” and he said he would consider keeping Raymond Kelly as police commissioner, but it’s too premature to discuss personnel. He supported congestion pricing (tolling the entry into Manhattan’s central business district) but doesn’t believe the proposal has “legs.” And he would consider launching another bid for the Summer Olympic Games.

Would he live in Gracie Mansion? (Bloomberg famously has not lived there, choosing to remain in his Upper East Side townhouse, and the mayor said last year he doesn’t think any mayor should live there.)

“Absolutely,” Carrion replied. “That house deserves a family, you know. It should be lived in. It’s a beautiful home. And it would be great if the first family could host visitors from around the world in Gracie Mansion. It has a rich tradition of doing that.“

“Mike had the luxury of not,” he said with a huge laugh, referring to the current mayor, a billionaire.